ESG Research and Resource Center

Food production is a leading contributor to global GHG emissions, deforestation, water stress and biodiversity loss, and the sector is increasingly under scrutiny to mitigate its environmental footprint. A failure to manage related impacts and adapt to changing consumer trends could result in material business risks or missing out on opportunities. Land and forest investments could become stranded assets. Sustainalytics will also provide a preview of its new thematic engagement, Feeding the Future.

Since the launch of the first Index, recognition of the human and economic consequences of poor nutrition has increased. Globally one in three people are now either undernourished, overweight or obese. Over the last 35 years obesity has more than doubled and has now reached epidemic proportions. Over the next 10 years, malnutrition is set to continue to increase.

To provide our clients with a better understanding of the ESG Risk Ratings, we published a series of white papers, the first of which presents a brief history of responsible investment and covers the motivations for developing a next generation ESG rating.

Overlaying Sustainalytics’ ESG Risk Ratings onto the FTSE AW Index, we found that 24 percent of the benchmark’s market cap was rated as having high to severe levels of ESG risk.

GES has engaged the cocoa industry for many years to increase its effort in tackling the issue of child labour. As a part of its long-term engagement, GES published its second public report on the issue, including investor expectations and a corporate benchmark of leading cocoa and chocolate companies.

Solutions for closing the food gap are likely to come from both production innovations and changes in consumption trends: on the one hand, it is essential that we increase the supply of food, while on the other, there is real potential for a reduction in demand for certain commodities.

Sustainalytics believes that natural gas has an important role to play in the energy transition, and therefore is an appropriate target for transition finance.

Finding your path in the upcoming ESG regulations: A spotlight on EU Taxonomy and Disclosures The Taxonomy is a classification framework, part of the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan, designed to determine whether an economic activity is environmentally sustainable.

In New Frontiers: African Sovereign Debt and ESG Risk, we leverage our Country Risk Ratings to analyze ESG risk among African countries. Our findings show country-level ESG risk and average sovereign credit ratings exhibit a strong positive correlation.

While investors are being drawn to the cannabis industry by the lure of an expanding market and profit potential, uncertainties around regulations, scalability and potential stock price corrections remain. Underexplored ESG risks could also present material concerns for management teams and investors entering the industry.

Based on our analysis, we find that investors in the FTSE Emerging Index are exposed to over 14 percent more unmanaged ESG risk than those in the FTSE Developed Index. The ESG risk gap between these indices is largest on the issue of data privacy and security. In addition, investors in select equity markets, such as China, may face a trade-off between chasing higher economic growth and mitigating portfolio ESG risk.

This four-part guide focuses on key areas of sustainable finance, offering companies, corporate investment banks and investors a better understanding of market trends and important developments.

This four-part guide focuses on key areas of sustainable finance, offering companies, corporate investment banks and investors a better understanding of market trends and important developments.

Overlaying Sustainalytics’ ESG Risk Ratings onto the FTSE AW Index, we found that 24 percent of the benchmark’s market cap was rated as having high to severe levels of ESG risk. In addition, over the course of Q4 2018 the negligible to low ESG risk companies outperformed the benchmark by 55 basis points. Our sample portfolio containing 300 best-in-class ESG performers would have returned 77 basis points more than the benchmark in Q4.

The Water Stewardship and Risk Engagement combines both scale and detail, and covers the food and beverage, mining and garment sectors, which are associated with a high level of water risk. This engagement links water policy and practices in these three sectors to the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all)

In 10 for 2018, we focus on the ESG issues we anticipate could pose significant risks for investors. The ESG issues in focus fall into four broad themes: water management, climate change, consumer protection and stakeholder governance. Learn more about the stories behind these issues below.

Econopolis combines financial analysis with its qualitative evaluation of management and macro-economic themes to construct a portfolio that it believes will be competitive and sustainable in the long term. Their qualitative approach to ESG presented them with two challenges: How can they measure their ESG performance against that of other leading responsible investors? And, how can they reassure clients that their approach is credible?

An estimated 40 million people are currently oppressed by modern slavery and companies are under increasing pressure to manage this issue to mitigate operational disruptions as well as compliance and reputational risks. Sustainalytics, FSI and Suncorp tackle this issue on Sustainalytics’ Perspectives on Modern Slavery – Australia webinar.

This report, Gaining Ground: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, evaluates how well 613 of the largest, publicly traded U.S. companies are integrating sustainability into their business systems and decision-making. The report— a collaboration between Ceres and Sustainalytics—assesses corporate progress across the four strategic areas first outlined in 2010 in the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability: Governance, Stakeholder Engagement, Disclosure and Performance.

GES has engaged the cocoa industry for many years to increase its effort in tackling the issue of child labour. As a part of its long-term engagement, GES published its second public report on the issue, including investor expectations and a corporate benchmark of leading cocoa and chocolate companies.